Contextual Documents for Undergraduate Study Guide

(please forgive the formatting issues below...)
I've included in my contextual documents a frontispiece image of the 1801 edition of Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism. This image provides an initial text for consideration of the novel and its possible rhetorical stance. And it’s simply interesting to see the original frontispiece. I will find out how to make it visible on this site.

“Biographical. Samuel Tenney, M.D. Original.”The Literary Gazette 1.8 (1834-1835) 14 Nov. 1834:            American Periodicals Series Online, ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

                This short article provides a historical biographical sketch of the husband of Tabitha Tenney and mentions her as “favorably known” while detailing the life and business of Samuel primarily. Although this text is short on explicit biographical detail of Tabitha Tenney, the reader may yet indirectly glean biographical information of her.

CLIO. “On Female Education.” The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository  of Instruction and Amusement (1774-1775) 1 Jan. 1774: American Periodicals Series Online, ProQuest.  Web.    5 Nov. 2010.

                This article written (by “CLIO.”) just before our nation’s independence speaks of the necessity to educate the minds of females which are “rich with native genius and noble sentiment.”  However, kind as that may sound, the article also goes on to emphasize the worth of educating “the fair sex” in order to bless those who “live under their care” and pass on learning to children. These are not necessarily bad ideas, but if this is all early American women were allowed to do with their education, then this article may easily be viewed as another revealer of the oppressive nature of early American female education. In short, this text briefly highlights the emphasis on the education of women in the earliest days of our budding nation, but it also reveals some of the possibly problematic motives behind that desire to educate.

Hayden, G. “The Choice of a Husband.” The North - Carolina Magazine; or, Universal Intelligencer 1.14 (1764-1765): 31 Aug. 1764: American Periodicals Series Online, ProQuest. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

                This is a poem that addresses young females and warns them of the dangers of focusing too much attention on appearances, the latest fashions, youthful marriage, romantic notions, etc. Hayden also encourages young women in this poem to seek a more comprehensive education in order to avoid folly (advice that Tenney’s Dorcasina Sheldon would have done well to accept and apply).

Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America’s Republic. Williamsburg, VA: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Print.

                This text sheds light on the educational system of early America. The reader of Tenney’s Female Quixotism will gain from a reading of this text as it guides a consideration of early American education. Where/how/if Tenney’s heroin breaks from this system is beneficial to an analysis of Female Quixotism.

McMahon, Lucia. “‘Of the Utmost Importance to Our Country:’ Women, Education, and Society 1780-  1820.” Journal of the Early Republic 29 (2009): 475-506. Print.

                This article sheds much light on the subject of early American education of women and the stated purposes for it. This article also lends great insight into the historical emphasis on women’s education around the time of Tenney’s Female Quixotism.

Rush, Benjamin. “Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic.” 1786. School Choices. http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/ruch.htm 1998. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

                This abrasive text preaches a doctrine of strict uniformity in education that will produce proper submission to governing authorities and laws of the republic. This text is helpful for the Female Quixotism reader in its service of illuminating early American education goals as well as the glaring contrast between the potential product of such a system and Tenney’s Dorcasina Sheldon. 

               

Female Quixotism and Patriarchal Incomplete Education of Women (Proposal)

                According to Cynthia J. Miecznikowski, Dorcasina Sheldon (the protagonist of Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism) “is in some sense on her own in a men’s world; she is her own mother” (The Parodic Mode 38).  Dorcasina’s mother died when Dorcas (her pre-romantic fancy name) was only three years old. Consequently, Dorcasina lacks the guidance she needs in FQ in order to live a life free of romantic delusion. Mr. Sheldon makes sure his daughter is educated, but without a present instructing mother Dorcasina is doomed to be ignorant of “the plain rational path of life” (Tenney 4).  In FQ the reader is confronted with a personified early nationalist American patriarchy in the character of Mr. Sheldon; he recognizes (to a degree) the worth of his daughter’s education, yet the matriarchal voice is absent from Dorcasina’s instruction.  Therefore, Dorcasina thinks and lives according to fancy and tragically deficient reason.  Accordingly, FQ serves as a commentary of the patriarchal incomplete education of women in early national America.

                Lucia McMahon states, “In the decades following the Revolution, the education of women was considered part of a larger experiment, a means of assuring social and political stability during the critical years of nation building” (“Of the Utmost Importance to Our Country” 487).  Early in America there was an emphasis on the education of women in order to build and preserve this nation.  But who was doing the teaching and what was being taught.  In many cases there was a present female voice in the classroom, however, the doctrine often reaffirmed patriarchal supremacy and control.  Through my research and writing on this topic, I endeavor to demonstrate the links between the character of Dorcasina Sheldon and the historical educational context she exists in to present day concerns about the dominant patriarchal voice in education and its possible negative effects in the lives of “educated” women.  Most useful to my endeavor are books and peer reviewed journal articles that take a specifically feminist critical look at education in the history of America and in current academia.  Also useful to my intention is an awareness and consideration of the negative societal effects that dominant patriarchal education has produced and is likely producing.  To put it another way, I plan to uncover how education in America has not provided the complete consideration of “the plain rational path of life” for many female learners.

                The total value of the above mentioned project is its recognition that education can affect society.  Since it is the case that education can produce positive and/or negative effects in a given society, to demonstrate the patriarchal incompleteness of education may inspire a further investment (in every sense of the word) into creating/providing/maintaining a present female voice in academia and consequently, in that society.

Works Cited

McMahon, Lucia. “‘Of the Utmost Importance to Our Country:’ Women, Education, and Society, 1780

                1820.” Journal of the Early Republic 29 (2009): 475-506.

Miecznikowski, Cynthia. "The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative: Reading the Female

Reader(s) in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism." Early American Literature 25.1 (1990): 34-45.

Tenney, Tabitha. Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagent Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

               

Miecznikowski, Cynthia J. “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative: Reading the Female Reader(s) in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism.” Early American Literature 25.1 (1990): 34-45.

In this article, Cynthia Miecznikowski argues that Female Quixotism functions as a parody of a parody in which satire is achieved as the reader considers the in-text criticisms of the (mis)readings of Dorcasina Sheldon. Miecznikowski claims that the novel “imitates the romance, working within its boundaries, both including and excluding its conventions, conserving and subverting its form” (42). Through this intertextuality, FQ accomplishes a satirical criticism of the romantic genre. Miecznikowski argues that if the reader will accurately observe these functions in/of the novel, then the reader will not make the mistake of “see[ing] the novel as a ‘female picaresque,’ for to do so is to relegate it to the margins of the patriarchal tradition whose conventions it seems to challenge successfully” (42). For Miecznikowski, the form of FQ enables the novel to break out of the assumption that the story is simply about a foolish rogue woman, but that its main function is to “satirize both contemporary criticism of the novel…and the conventions of the genre from which these criticisms derived” (35).

Often, in “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative,” Miecznikowski works to elaborate on and use some of the ideas of Cathy Davidson[1] and seeks to argue against some of the ideas of Linda Hutcheon[2] yet using some of Hutcheon’s points to buttress her own arguments. Miecznikowski disagrees with Davidson’s analysis which “perhaps secures [the novel’s] position outside the canon of early American literature” by reading it to be a tale of a rogue woman (34). Hutcheon’s definition of parody is useful but lacking the “transcontextualization” that makes FQ function as Miecznikowski claims it does (35). And although “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative” opposes Davidson’s marginalization of FQ, Miecznikowski agrees with Davidson that “the novel is best read as an ‘allegory of reading’” (35). As an allegory of reading, or really a parodic satirical allegory of reading, Miecznikowski is able to gain the transcontextualization that she needs to bring the novel back from the margins.

            This article has added to my thinking process concerning FQ and contextualization in literature in general. Prior to reading this article I was tempted to see only the issue of a woman who appears to be culturally unruly. While Dorcasina Sheldon may be unruly (in fact, in such a way as to harm herself), the text operates on a more subterranean level in order to challenge patriarchal traditions of criticism. I will now consider FQ’s explicit statements and ideas while taking heed to the points that Miecznikowski proposes. This article has proven to be useful for my consideration of Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism, and I believe that it will also be useful as I consider other texts and the combination of forms they may use to challenge the existing patriarchal traditions of criticism.

---

[1]Davidson, Cathy N. “Flirting with Destiny: Ambivalence and Form in the Early Sentimental Novel.” Studies in American Fiction 10 (1982): 17-39

_____, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.

[2] Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Paraody. New York: Menthuen, 1985.

Preliminary Bibliography

Here it is! The preliminary bibliography of resources I will digest.

Preliminary Bibliography for Female Quixotism Research

Frost, Linda. "The Body Politic in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism." Early American Literature

            32.2 (1997): 113-34.

Gordon, Scott P. The Practice of Quixotism: Postmodern Theory and Eighteenth-Century Women's

Writing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Heller, Lee E. "Conceiving the 'New' American Literature." Early American Literature 29.1 (1994):

             83-90.

Lang, Jessica. "Scratching the Surface: Reading Chracter in Female Quixotism." Texas Studies in

Literature and Language 51.2 (2009): 119-41.

Miecznikowski, Cynthia. "The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative: Reading the Female

Reader(s) in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism." Early American Literature 25.1 (1990):   

34-45.

Reesman, Jeanne C., ed. Speaking the Other Self: American Women Writers. Athens: University of

Georgia, 1997.

Woloch, Nancy. Early American Women: A Documentary History, 1600-1900. Boston, MA: McGraw-

            Hill, 2002.

Rhetorical Analysis of _Female Quixotism_

Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism presents clear rhetoric on the surface of the text. The heading of the first chapter in the 1992 edition is an admonishment taken from the 1801 frontispiece: an admonishment that summarizes the rhetorical purpose of the entire text. It reads thus,

FELIX QUEM FACIUNT ALIENA PERICULA CAUTUM.

In plain English –

LEARN TO BE WISE BY OTHERS HARM,

AND YOU SHALL DO FULL WELL (Tenney 4).

The rhetoric in Female Quixotism exists to warn its audience from becoming like its main character. Dorcas Sheldon (who in the first chapter decides she must change her name to Dorcasina to be in accord with the romantic tales she has read) has become the victim of believing that she can live the life of a female character in a romantic novel. Much like “the ingenious hidalgo” of Cervantes, Dorcas suffers from seeking to define herself in a way that proves tragic to her true self (or at least what society largely assumes her true self should be).

                The frontispiece of the 1801 edition is rather plain. At first glance this fact may seem insignificant, but knowing that the novel’s stated purpose is anti-romantic, the simple (i.e. lacking any eye catching frilly detail) frontispiece speaks as clearly as the opening letter and the rest of the novel. Female Quixotism opens with a letter that suggests to the audience that the author is an objective reporter or “Compiler” (Tenney 3). This letter is reprinted from the 1801 edition in the 1992 edition. The letter sets up the novel as a historical document in which the reporter tells of the “particulars of the life of Miss Dorcas Sheldon. These appeared so whimsical and outré that I had a strong inclination to acquire knowledge of her whole story… for the advantage of the younger part of her sex” (Tenney 3). Two crucial things to note from this anonymous author, “the COMPILER,” are the facts that s/he does not reveal her/his gender but does state clearly that the novel (or rather, the would-be historical text) will serve as a helpful guide to any young women who may be tempted to follow in some of the steps of Dorcas. It is then obvious as well that the intended audience is in fact exclusively young women: young women who have an apparent inclination toward romanticizing life. Another issue that is presented quickly in the novel is the idea that a young woman must have the proper upbringing to avoid romantic error. Dorcas Sheldon’s mother died when Dorcas was just a young girl, and her father has since been “indulg[ing] his daughter in the full latitude of her inclination” (Tenney 6). This novel, therefore, also declares itself a warning to parents.

                One aspect of this novel that will be very interesting to explore in order to gain better insight into its rhetoric is whether or not Tabitha Tenney’s voice is apparent in the novel and if so, does it communicate the same ideas as the Compiler. It is vital to note that this novel presents itself in such a way that the actual author’s voice may remain elusive while the implied author narrates the whole tale as an authoritative yet ambiguous voice. As I continue to read through this text I will conduct research into the life of Tabitha Tenney and seek to discover what her thoughts about romanticism were and how she may have agreed whole heartedly with the Compiler or may have subtly proposed views that would be found more culturally unruly. In early America there were many writers who openly decried romanticism and the negative effects that would come from such literature. It appears that Tenney is writing with such a rhetorical purpose.

                Female Quixotism’s rhetoric is clear: romanticism is not healthy for our young women. But does Tenney reveal at times in this novel a female voice that rebels against a society that tells her and the young women of society what they can and cannot read or who they can and cannot be? If Tenney is in line at all times with anti-romanticism sentiment, then another good question consider is, why does any woman want to escape to the realm of the romantic novel? That is to ask, why is Dorcas so unhappy with her actual state of affairs? These questions will be considered throughout this project.

               

               

Works Cited

Tenney, Tabitha. Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant

            Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Artifact Inventory

Female Quixotism by Tabitha Tenney was originally published in 1801 anonymously by Isaiah Thomas and E.T. Andrews in Boston. Five editions were produced relatively soon after the original: 1801 (Thomas & Andrews); 1808 (Thomas & Whipple); 1825 & 1829 (J.P. Peaslee); 1841 (G.Clark); and in 1992 from the 1801 edition (Oxford University Press; edited by Jean Nienkamp & Andrea Collins). The relatively quick reproduction of this novel suggests a decent amount of contemporary popularity. In her foreword to the 1992 edition, Cathy Davidson writes, “Female Quixotism is one of the best novels written in America before 1825.” If she is accurate in her estimation of this novel, it is not difficult for us to imagine the worth of creating new editions throughout the first half of the 19th century. This blog will further document research concerning the novel’s contemporary popularity and the similarities and differences of the five early editions. This blog will also consider the text as art, revelation of Tenney’s voice and apparent purposes, as well as some other critical analyses.


Having seen on microfilm the simple frontispiece of the 1801 edition I assumed originally that the book was relatively inexpensive but have come to find that Cathy Davidson, in her Revolution and the Word, reports that the relative cost of books was rather prohibitive (Dr. Logan).

The full title of the 1801 edition is Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon. From the title alone the reader may rightfully suspect s/he is in for quite a time of ill advised decisions and tragically flawed self-definition (the Latin tag after the title is also informative of the goal of the text, cf. image of 1801 frontispiece). Soon, I will add to this blog my findings concerning the similarities and/or differences between the frontispieces and general texts of the 1801, 1808, 1825, 1829, and 1841 editions.

While the 1801 frontispiece does not include the name of an author, it is made clear to the reader that the main subject of the book is the life of a particular female. One thing that will be interesting to find is whether or not the text gives any hints of female authorship. Much like Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Female Quixotism is written from the perspective of a supposedly trustworthy historian who seeks to simply retell the facts for the sake of speaking warning into others’ lives.

I welcome all to join me and explore what we may of this text. Enjoy the blog and the process of this research assignment. There is much more soon to come.